


but it seems so long

by lordy_lou



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Vex'ahlia-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordy_lou/pseuds/lordy_lou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can't feel a heartbeat.  She checks her pulse, and finds the same result.</p><p>(This is the currency of vengeance.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. yes.

 

_evening came_

_to the corners of my mind again._

 

_—_

 

When Vex said yes—when she accepted, when she gave up her heart to Saundor—she did not look at her companions.Instead, she remembered her mother’s bones, and the hatred of Syngorn, the two memories swirling black and green in her mind’s eye.So she pledged her heart to this ancient, sad fey.

 

“Oh yes,” he’d sighed, old and low, like the weight of millennia clogging a soul, and the lightness of hope was nowhere to be heard.“Your heart, sweet Vex’ahlia.”

 

“I have a task, first,” she’d said. There were dragons to kill.“I will return after Thordak is dead, but I will need the bow.”

 

Saundor’s bark skin shifted.“The bow you shall have,” he said.“But I need something in assurance.”

 

And the vines and the pitch came for her in an instant, soaked through her leathers and whipped down to her skin, her sternum,  _her heart_ , and it was _gone,_ and her blood moved sluggish like tar through her veins.

 

And dimly, as her vision faded, there was shouting.

 

—

 

When Vex awakes, she is no longer in the Feywild.Judging from the austere decoration of the room, and the window’s view of the pale sun edging over the white mountaintops, she is in Whitestone. Vax’ildan is sitting at the end of her bed, watching her, and there is a gorgeous bow in his lap.

 

He silently presses a hand over his heart, and she mirrors his movements.She can’t feel a heartbeat.She checks her pulse, and finds the same result.

 

Vex’s mouth is dry, but she forces it to work anyways.

 

“Not exactly what I meant when I said I’d give him my heart, is it?”

 

Vax begins to weep, and the feathers of his cloak shiver with the force of his cries.  He tells her he tried, they'd all tried to kill the archfey, but he held her heart, and oh, Vex, why?

 

Vex wants to go to him, but it’s a distant want, a far-off pang of sympathy that isn’t worth the action required.So she sits and watches, until she is tired of his tears.

 

“Vax,” she says.He doesn’t look at her, so she tries again.It doesn’t work, and eventually Vex stands, walks to him, and plucks the bow from his lap as he sobs.It curls to the weight of her touch, the green vine-work humming under her hands. 

 

_This, then_ , she thinks, _is my price_. _This is a weapon that could kill a dragon_.

 

She thinks of Thordak, and of Byroden burning.She feels no rage, no anger—only a numb irritation.

 

Vex looks at her brother weeping, and leaves the room to find her things.There’s preparations to be made, and a task to complete.

 

—

 

(she insists they travel to find the other vestiges immediately.grog agrees, scanlan gives her a sad smile and a shrug, and keyleth also begins to weep, like vax, but she is also enraged.she drags pike to vex and demands pike and her goddess drive out the corruption, that sarenrae _fix vex’ahlia now, please, pike, please,_ _she’s not right, she’s gone,_ but a goddess knows the value of a deal and a pact made, and cannot-willnot change things. then keyleth shouts at vex, and when vex simply walks away, she screams wordlessly and terribly.

 

vax’s eyes are wet but focused whenever he looks at his sister.he has been spending much of his time praying to his queen.he hopes, still.trinket moans and stays with vax more often than not.she no longer smells like the forest he remembers, he says.she stinks like tar.

 

percy, of all people, nods in understanding. _this is the currency of vengeance_ , he says to her. _but i will be with you through it_. 

 

_you have my heart. i thought, in our own way—_ he does not say to her. 

 

there is no point to any of it: there is no vex to speak to, really.)

 

—

 

When Thordak dies—finally, finally killed by one last fantastical sneaking strike by Vax, who had flown above the great monster, behind his burning eyes, and—and—and—

 

Truthfully, Vex does not see Thordak die.She is prone on the field, her bow flung from her hands, Trinket’s warm corpse beneath her head.Percy is crouched by them with Bad News still smoking and Scanlan is frantically singing her bones back together when she hears Grog’s triumphant roar.There are other cheers, too, but his is the loudest. 

 

Then there’s a hard pull where her heart used to be, and vines burst from the ashy earth, but the earth is that same sticky, dead mud, now, and she’s coated and she sees Scanlan’s surprise and Percy’s strangled shout—

 

—and she falls for years, years and miles and planes, until she is back in the tree, and Saundor catches her with those same vines.

 

“The dragon is dead,” he says.“Your task is complete.”In his hands is a small mud-and-red muscle, and for the first time in months, Vex feels an echo pounding in her chest.More vines carry her to him, and he gently unclasps the leather garments of her top.With one long finger, he draws a line down her sternum, and she cannot look away as her flesh painlessly opens before his touch. 

 

Vex sees her own halted, darkened blood and the maddeningly empty spot where her heart should be, and with its proximity in Saundor’s hands, she _yearns._

 

“I return your heart to you, as you have been returned to me,” he says, and tucks it in, like it’s never been gone. 

 

The world is suddenly loud with her own heartbeat filling her ears.Vex blinks, and gasps, and cries.

 

—

 

[ _wheel will turn, spinning:_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ze0JQhTPU)

[ _and my past will burn._ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ze0JQhTPU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next part should be up soon.


	2. notes.

 

 

_ here, not now. _

_ let this sink. _

 

—

 

_After everything dies down, after Vax stops weeping and Keyleth stops screaming and Percival turns his shuttered gaze away, she goes to Scanlan first._

 

_“Tell me what I missed,” she says.“After I blacked out, and before I awoke.”_

 

_The gnome cocks his head, a gleam in his eye.“Is what Keyleth says right?That you’re not Vex?”_

 

_She sighs.“I’m still Vex.”_

 

_“You don’t seem like it, if you’ll pardon my bluntness.I was there when your pulse was checked the first time.And the second, and third, and fourth, and fifth, and so on.But you’re breathing.Is Vex’ahlia dead?”_

 

_Vex taps her fingers.She would be exasperated at the questions, before, she knows, but it’s a dim annoyance now, like a fly buzzing around her head.She has more important things to do._

 

_“I’m still alive.”_

 

_Scanlan blinks at her slowly, humming, and she feels the soft wash of his magic over her cool skin.He presses his lips together in a grimace._

 

_“So you are.But you’re less than Vex’ahlia, that’s for sure.Again, pardoning my bluntness.”_

 

_“I’m still Vex.I’m still me.”_

 

_“But not quite.”_

 

_Vex presses a hand to her heart.Or, at least, to where her heart would be.Her chest is quiet and still.“Think what you want.Please tell me what happened.”_

 

_Scanlan sighs.“Your brother’s heartbroken.”_

 

_“I’m sorry,” she says, out of rote memory.The empty space within her does not gnaw, does not echo.It simply is._

 

_“So are we all, love.”_

 

_—_

 

(this is how it happened, scanlan tells her:

 

after you fell, all of us began to launch into their own attacks—grog raging, keyleth a pillar of fire, percy shooting and snarling and smoking, of course, and vax, well, love, of course he was right at your body about as soon as you hit the ground.but then saundor had held up your heart—it was throbbing and filthy in his palm—and with his awful, creaking voice, said that hurting him was the equivalent of forfeiting your life.

 

you’d made a choice and you’d made the deal, he’d said, and those of us who dared call you our friend should respect that choice.then he put the bow on your body, and said that you’d come back—and your heart would go back into your body—once thordak was dead, and that was that.

 

it was your choice, he kept saying, and he was glad you’d made it.he told us to cherish the time we have left with you. 

 

oh, vex—you should have known not to deal.not this time.no matter how angry you were, didn’t you learn from percy?)

 

_—_

 

When her heart is placed back into her chest and her flesh re-knits, before she has finished crying, she looks to Saundor.

 

“I made a mistake,” Vex says. 

 

Saundor closes his eyes.“But it was your mistake to make,” he replies.The vines have fallen away from them both now, and they stand in the tree, black mud up to their ankles.Now that she is close and has the time to inspect, she can see shades of the man he may once have been.A man that once had loved and lost, and lost, and lost.

 

“Your mistake, my Vex’ahlia,” he says, “but to my benefit.” 

 

There is a curious feeling in—no, _on, no,_ ** _in_** —her chest, and she looks down to see dark bark sprouting across her skin from where her heart had been replaced.It is spreading, slowly, up to her collarbones and down to her breasts.It is spreading up her neck and across her ribs and she feels a creaking in her back and shoulders, and knows the bark has spread there too.

 

“What—what have you done, what have you done what are you doing—”

 

His eyes are so old.He reaches up and places a hand on her soft cheek, brushes his thumb across her temple.

 

“I am the blight in these woods, my love.And we are akin, did I not say?”

 

The bark reaches up her throat and across her jaw, her teeth, her tongue, her eyes. 

 

—

 

From the notebook _Vex’ahlia-Feywild (VE-FW)_

 

_Physically: Missing heart (VM-FW, Log 34).Blood slightly darker than before.Very slight smell of tar and rot even after washing (see Trinket, VM-ST, p. 146, modified)._

 

_In combat: With Fenthras, even more fearsome.Seems to be more vicious than before her deal (aftereffect of choice?Compulsion to return to Saundor?Discuss w. Allura for possible arcana)._

 

_In downtime (rare): Tight grasp on ledgers unchanged.Does not joke with other members of VM—actively avoids brother and Keyleth (discomfort or guilt? if heart is gone, can these be felt? how absent can a heart be? Discuss w. Scanlan? No, Pike. No, both, but separately).Most typically emotional responses seem to be affectations—things of rote habit, really—and nothing else (possibly dulled?).Plans and fletches. Still prefers to fly (some things are beyond the heart, then, and bone-deep)._

 

_Other: Own heart was given over; hers removed entirely.A thing which is not there cannot be influenced.The Raven Queen has given up her soul once and the gods cannot become involved in deals. For now…hells, I…_

 

_For now: Focus on the dragons; create plans for after the CC’s death (this new journal—VE-FW; make copies for all VM + other allies - Vex’ahlia). Offer support (how? a speech? you know what vengeance costs).Do not dwell on how you could have prevented this gnawing desperation within her, you cowardly prick.It will do her no good and obviously you’re not part of this.Don’t let others dwell.Recruit Scanlan and Grog in this endeavor.Don’t dwell on the thought.Don’t._

 

—

 

In the first month, as she adjusts to her bark skin and ichor sweat, blood, and tears (tears! she hasn’t wept—hasn’t _felt_ —in so long, she revels in her terror and her rage), Saundor does not touch her again. But touch isn’t necessary for him, not really, not at this point. 

 

“You were gone for some time, my dear,” he says.Vex’ahlia forces her mind not to reel away at the term of endearment and the implication of his breath, his lips on her thudding flesh.“I know your heart fully, now.”

 

And he does, and that’s the problem.Every word that Saundor had said that first time still holds true: she is not enough for her team—couldn’t even make it through the fight with Thordak without getting her bear killed, couldn’t even loot a tomb without getting herself killed, couldn’t fix her brother, couldn’t fix Per—no, no, turn away, she thinks. 

 

She shakes her thoughts away, and watches Saundor’s face crease in a semblance of pity.She feels the echo of it too, in the back of her head, in the chambers of her heart.

 

“It has never been your job to fix anyone, Vex’ahlia,” he murmurs from across the room.He’s been giving her space, but she feels the itch of want from his eyes, from his steps.“We are broken and we are jagged in the same way, and we will learn from here.”

 

_Who are you to talk about the future when you’ve spent so long wallowing in your rot,_ Vex does her best not to think. _Who are you to take a heart and offer up nothing equal in return—a weapon does not constitute love, a mistake, we are both cruel and selfish, but you took advantage, a mistake, a mistake, a mistake._

 

But: 

 

He knows her heart fully, now.And there is no disguising the way her thoughts grate against his.

 

He winces away, and she feels a pang of blasted guilt, and her hands flex for a weapon that’s not there.  

 

—

 

_VE-FW_

_Notes from discussion w/ S and G:_

 

_-Offer Fenthras in return?Doesn’t seem like enough, but may as well try._

_-Abduction—if her heart has been returned, then we may be able to steal her back, but steal her whole._

_-Per Grog: “Kill ‘im.” [sic] (Danger to Vex’ahlia? Is the compulsion still present?Will she fight us?)_

_-Attempt to strike a different deal.Myself, if necessary.Bring in other influences—Artagyn?_

 

 

“What will we do if we get her back and she’s just like she was?No heart, I mean?” 

 

“We’ll deal with it, of course. She stuck to me, when I was a bloody pain. I owe her that much, but so much more, really.”

 

“Gods, you’re a sap.”

 

—

 

(she hates them both: him, for offering, and herself, for accepting such a raw deal.he knows this, how can he not?he knows her heart, and they are so, so alike, he thinks.they are both rejected and discarded.but he can live with hate, because hate is more than apathy, more than indifference.she will accept him, eventually. 

 

hate burns out, for creatures like her. then it turns. 

 

they have all the time in the world.)

 

—

 

In another plane, a notebook snaps shut. 

 

—

 

[ _ let this sink. _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yod9tQdibDY)

[ _ and i’m doing this right, and my heart will go— _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yod9tQdibDY)

[ _ and go— _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yod9tQdibDY)

 

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm)


	3. nowhere now.

 

_we followed the white deer’s trail_

_found a hunter’s trap_

_made out of steel and wire_

_body gripped with wrath_

 

—

 

After the second month, after the grating between their minds lessens (she has changed, she has consciously smoothed her edges), Saundor begins to teach Vex how to cast her mind out of the Echo Tree and into the roots and the limbs and earth of the bog surrounding.She can feel the footsteps and motions of the creatures within the mud, and she can feel their base thoughts (food-water-hunt; they trigger familiar pangs within her but she hasn’t felt those urges in so long, it seems).Her perception stops at the fringes of the bog, halted by the fierce rivers of the Gilded Run.

 

Sandor is a glowing, throbbing presence in the back of her mind, always. _I would be brighter_ , he thinks to her, _but I am bowed and dimmed from years past.But you, my dear Vex’ahlia, you are still bright, even though, even though._

 

She very carefully does not think about the corollaries of _even though._ She does not think about her friends’ distrustful gazes, about missing hearts, about wood replacing hard-won scars, about Saundor’s black-tongued kisses against her hands, about a bloody knife and a cage.

 

There are mornings when Vex awakens and wants to be cruel.

 

She does not think about the rage subtly coiling in her gut, and he is happy, and she is safe.

 

_—_

 

(the first thing she learns, really: to throw up walls in her mind.this is almost easy, though—she had the foundations from her life before her heart left and was returned.keeping an outsider’s presence floating in her immediate mind is not too different from keeping her own thoughts surface-level, never dipping into the sticky seam of self-hatred that writhes at the base of her skull. 

 

(he gave her power to kill dragons, to protect friends. in return, she gave him power over her.but the deal was incomplete. vex has never believed that a heart is forever, even if she had hoped it when she was young and full of stories. her brother, as dour as he was and as jolly as she was, has always been the happier one. damn him for that, and damn her for thinking it.

 

(she remembers in whitestone when percy woke up and was crueler and colder, torturous and coughing and just a bit mad.she feels like that now, and pities (lo—no, no, no, stop) him even more in hindsight.there is a blight upon this land, a corruption, and it is spreading to her.saundor thinks that she is bright—and maybe she is, if only in comparison to him—but with her presence she can feel the land losing what little color it had left.she vomits black tar one evening, and saundor’s hands run down her spine in comfort, and she hates it but welcomes it as well.))

 

 saundor read her when she first touched the shademirk. she will not allow it to happen again.)

 

\-- 

 

_It is two days after Vox Machina has killed Thordak when they finally arrive at the riverlands in the Feywild._ _Pike doesn’t know who the fey man standing in—on—the center of the last river of the Gilded Run is, but the rest of her companions seem to know him: Vax removes his hands from his daggers, Percy’s folding his arms, Grog is barking out a laugh, talking about pictures._

 

_“Well met, Vox Machina,” the man says.There is a ringing in his rich voice, and his ears knife through his long, red hair.In the gloaming, he seems to be lit from within, some deep and intrinsic thrum of golden light seeping from his skin._

 

_“Well met, I say.It has been many months since we last spoke, hasn’t it?”He has a broad smile and pointed teeth, and steps through the air, up from the water and onto the soft banks._

 

_Vax chokes, and Keyleth grabs his shoulder.Pike watches as Percy’s hands clench tightly in his coat.The grounds across the river are covered with a familiar ichor, and the death-scent of it wafts towards the simmering group._

 

_“Many months, you say?” Scanlan says.Always, thankfully, the first to recover, Pike thinks, but even then she knows that concealed strain in his voice._

 

_“Of course, Master Shorthalt,” the man says.“Time flows differently on this plane, or have you forgotten?”Then he tilts his head to look at the rest of the group more fully, and his smile is like a cut.“You have.That’s unfortunate, with your friend.”_

 

_“How many?” Vax forces out.“How long—how long has she—”_

 

_The man’s green eyes glitter in—what, pity? Amusement?_

 

_No, Pike thinks, his smile is like a lion.Lovely and bloody and true to its nature._

 

—

 

In the darkness in the heart of the cancerous tree, Vex tries to sleep (curled and cradled in the ceiling, vines wrapped round), but Saundor’s eyes (always, always watching, and always waiting for some secret signal only he seems to know) are as bright as the sun. 

 

Next to her, walking through vines, he hums at the thought, doubtlessly pleased.The idea of her eyes like a new moon floats into her head (and nausea roils within her stomach.she very carefully does not think about her brother’s face, about her friends’ faces, of how she liked to study their gazes. 

 

sometimes, she would watch and wait for the moment of silent solemnity that flashes through a person—any person, even grog—like a storm.the quiet realization of one’s singular and tiny presence in a certain time and place, the soft shock of all of one’s past collating itself in a blink.

 

gods, it’s beautiful to her.her heart thuds, slowly but surely, and she curses it.

 

(it has been months upon months.her clustered, cloistered thoughts have not yet overwhelmed her, but she thinks she will drown soon)).

 

“My love,” he whispers, “reach out with me.”Somewhere deep in her brain, the grating edge where their minds meet smooths out for a second, and Saundor tugs her senses through the gap, through his own foggy pathways and into the roots of the tree and the forest and the belching mire of the bog.

 

—vibrations of troll-feet drumming half a mile away; constant wriggling and shifting vines like a hum; a pop and a crack as a nearby tree bends to the weight of the ichor; her own heart echoing and reverberating in her chest—

 

and, Vex launches herself back, back to her own body.Saundor’s hands ghost over her bare, bark-skinned shoulders. 

 

(she is becoming more tree than person now, she thinks idly, and trees don’t truly feel.his touch is constant but muted.)

 

“Soon, you will grasp it on your own.” he says behind her.“Did you feel them?”

 

“The trolls?” she asks.“They’re moving.” _Nothing new there_ , she thinks to him, and he smiles softly.He has told her that in another month, the trolls will enter their hibernation as what passes for winter overtakes this small spot in the Feywild, and the thought of trolls sleeping deep beneath the roots of the great and awful tree makes her think of Trinket, of Trinket, of—(no, stop, hush, divert).Makes her think of winter and of Vorughal’s icy breath.Saundor’s hands still on her shoulders as he takes in the thought of the frozen corpses of Draconia, but he doesn’t move away.

 

“Not the trolls, Vex’ahlia.Something else.Someone else.”

 

Saundor’s hands move down to her upper arms and he bends his mouth to her neck.His lips hover above where her artery was, once, and his breath is faint but warm against her bark skin.He pauses there for a moment, for a long inhale and a slow exhale, while he curls his left hand away from her arms, and instead pulls her to him, her back pressed against his whipcord body.

 

She wills her mind to be still.

 

“Vox Machina,” he says softly.“They’ve come for you, after so, so long.”He kisses her neck twice, gentle and lingering.One of his hands is splayed across her abdomen, his fingers like spider’s legs, light and horrific.

 

Vex’s heart beats sluggish and thick in her chest.Something like mud and rot, rage and promise, roils in her stomach.She wills her mind to be still.She wills her mind to be still.

 

She reaches up a hand to her neck, finds Saundor’s face.She strokes his cheek like she imagines real lovers do, and he shudders behind her, and she presses herself harder against him for a scant second and his choked breath races across her neck and down her collarbones.Then she puts her hand over his and gently pulls his hands from her, turning in the erstwhile cage of his arms to face him full-on, returning her hand to his rough cheek. 

 

“Let them come,” she says.He tilts his head, and she can feel her mind’s edge churning with his study.

 

Vex wills her mind to be still. _Let them come,_ she thinks, and fills her mind with the memories of her brother’s cries, of Keyleth’s anger, of Scanlan’s cool appraisal of her new self, of Trinket’s death. _Let them come_.Her stomach rolls.

 

Saundor shuts his bright, burning eyes.His hands settle on her hips, and his head returns to the crook of her neck.Vex tilts her jaw away from him, and does not think of a group trying to make their way safely through the swamp.She puts her other hand on his waist, rubbing her thumb along the bark skin of his stomach.

 

He mouths a word into her neck.She can’t see his lips, can’t tell what it is.

 

Far below them, beneath the vines, a knot in the tree widens and cracks and tears.

 

—

 

[ _maybe you should let it go._ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6jA-l0Vj8A)

[ _i don’t mind telling you so_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6jA-l0Vj8A)

[ _if it gives you something to hold on to._ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6jA-l0Vj8A)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ew i grossed myself out
> 
> sorry about the wait! thanks for reading; one more chapter to go.


	4. in some way.

_seven geese in flight call from a great height:_

_grey wing, then white._

_grey wing,_

_then white._

 

—

 

Vox Machina pours into the tree: Vax is at the lead, his Flametongue dagger just as bright as Keyleth’s flaming hands, and Pike, as always, shines in the darkness.Even then, Scanlan watches Percy squint in the shadows, and feels a brief tug of pity for the human.He’s always had a bit more trouble with the dark.But that’s not the only pity Scanlan feels for the boy, not with Vex’s choice and Percy’s poorly concealed heartbreak during planning— _get ahold of yourself, man_ , he tells himself. _It’s time to kill an archfey._

 

The interior of the tree is dim, as before, and in the center of the chamber Saundor stands, as before, but there is something shorter and darker pressed against him.

 

Scanlan’s first thought is: _That’s a weird tree._

 

Then the thing moves, and he recognizes the long-held grace in the movement, the sway of the hips as it— _she_ —turns to face the group, and he recognizes those dark eyes that cast light upon them all.He recognizes Vax’s iron-clenched hands, and Percy’s stunned-straight back, and Pike’s soft squeak.He recognizes Grog’s growl, and he recognizes the familiar cant of Vex’s head, looking for all the world like she was about to haggle, to trick, to wink, to charm. Except where there was once hair—ah, vines.

 

Scanlan’s second thought is: _She’s lost her braid._ And there was more, even then: she’d lost her clothing, and her skin seemed to be bark instead, and impossibly long tendrils of ivy and vine fall to the ground behind her, trailing as she walks towards them.

 

“Oi! Vex!” Scanlan calls.“Catch!”He pulls a copper from his pocket and throws it to her.She catches it as fast as a snake striking, her arm’s movement isolated and eerie.Vax, Percy, and Keyleth turn to him as one, confusion writ large on their faces.

 

Scanlan’s third thought is: _Let me know what’s going on in that head, old friend._ He breathes a tune, small and beseeching, and he feels his magic slide from him to the coin to her hand to her mind, and oh, what is this?

 

Her mind is like a prelude to a storm, like a rush of dark clouds overhead and the stillness of the air beneath.Her glowing eyes turn to him, and Scanlan is suddenly dizzy with the duality of her gaze and her thoughts.He swallows, and forces a smile onto his face.Maybe this was a spell he should’ve tested on someone other than Grog.

 

Her thoughts flinch away from him, and he sees distant flashes of lightning in her mind, and he can sense something at the edges pressing in, and—oh.Hmm.

 

“Hi Vex!” he says.“And hello, you fey asshole _,”_ he says, waggling his fingers at Saundor, who has not moved. There is a low rumble of thunder in Vex’s mind, and suddenly the storm is upon him.There’s a great howling of wind and rage—

 

Scanlan blinks, and he’s only in his own head, and by the gods it’s _pounding._ He sees Vex blink as well, sees her slowly exhale.Sees Saundor walk behind her, sees him put his hands on her bare shoulders.Vex looks straight at Scanlan again, and he’s reminded of the time she brought her broom to his room and her flirtatious act before the confession of thievery.He’d thought she’d seemed so young, then.

 

Vex looks at Scanlan again, and she winks. 

 

It is slow and deliberate, without any of the sultry, smirking surety it’d always carried, but it’s a wink.Scanlan grins, and sketches a bow towards her.Saundor looks at her with—not surprise. It’s hard to put an emotion to that face, but Scanlan is familiar with surprise, and that’s not it.He pulls out his wand of fireballs.

 

“Knock him back! He’s in her mind!” he shouts, and Percy sinks to a crouch with Bad News as Grog roars forward, and both their attacks hit at once: the rifle’s impact catches Saundor in the shoulder as Grog barrels into him, forcing him back fifteen feet, back towards the center of the tree.Vines whip down from the top of the chamber, picking both him and Vex’ahlia up—Vex is wrapped tight, her arms bound to her sides.

 

Vax unfurls his wings as Scanlan shoots a fireball at the vines holding Vex—they burn in an instant, and Vax flies up to catch his sister, holding her close to him as more vines chase them through the chamber.Keyleth sparks herself into flame somewhere nearby ( _very_ nearby, judging from the sudden heat beside him) and Scanlan ducks as one of Pike’s sacred bolts arcs from behind him into the ceiling, where Saundor’s hidden himself.He can hear Vax murmuring to Vex as he weaves throughout the chamber, dodging vines, and Percy growls and pulls out Animus and shoots.There’s a spurt of ichor from the top of the room, and a scream from Vex.

 

“Nothing that hurts minds, you moron!” Vax shouts.Grog leaps towards the wall and starts to climb as Percy curses and tosses the gun away.Vax lands by Scanlan and gently puts Vex on the ground—“Stick to the plan, buddy,”—and takes off into the air again.

 

Vex looks at Scanlan, and her face is wooden. _Ha!_ He shoots another fireball at the encroaching vines reaching for Vex.It’s close enough that he can feel the heat, but Vex doesn’t flinch.Her jaw is clenched tightly as Keyleth runs past them to fight the vines on her own.

 

“Do you have your heart back?Can you fight him?” Scanlan asks.They’re necessary questions: he knows how stories work and he remembers the fizz of Percy’s pepperbox in the acid beneath Whitestone.

 

Vex rolls her glowing eyes—and, good gods, what a relief, to see some real expression from her; there hadn’t been any when her heart had been gone, so maybe that’s that problem solved—but doesn’t answer.Maybe she can’t.Maybe saying her intentions makes them real, makes them a known quantity.He wonders, briefly, how deeply she’s buried her thoughts.

 

Ah well.It’s not really important, because he doesn’t even have a weapon to give her no matter who she wants to attack.Percy’s got Fenthras strapped to his back, has had it with him in the two day’s time since Thordak’s fall. 

 

Instead, he grabs her hand (run a finger over her wrist, can’t feel a pulse through the bark, shit) and hums a tune.They immediately fall into the ichorous swamp, far from the tree. 

 

“Sorry, sorry, your brother insisted, sorry,” he says, and then he hums more of the tune, and they’re closer to the edge of the swamp.He hums once more—that’s all he can do, that day, and that finishes the tune anyways—and they’re even closer.He can still see the gigantic tree in the distance, can feel the ichor of the swamp sucking him in.Vex isn’t, that preternatural ranger grace still kicking through her bones, but he’s starting to sink, fast.There’s a tree nearby that’s just a bit out of his reach, so he gives her an eye.

 

“A little help?” he says.“There’s a plan, you see, and part of it is getting you out of this damn bog.”

 

Vex looks down at him, and blinks.Once, twice, and then a great, hacking cough, black ichor smearing across the crook of her arm.Then she reaches down with one hand, and pulls him out with little effort.Much stronger than she used to be, but the cough—sounded like Percy.He shunts the thought away: something to deal with later.He dangles in the air in front of her, kicking his legs free of the muck.She doesn’t react as some of splatters on her, and he takes a moment to look: still naked, still wooden, still all viney around the head.But her eyes don’t glow so much in the relative light of the outdoors, and he can see that they’re still honey-brown.

 

“I’ve got my heart, but he’s still in my—he can still sense us, even here,” she murmurs, voice hoarse.She curls a finger towards the tree and a branch extends to her.“He’ll know until we’re gone from the Shademirk.Maybe further, but I can only get a few miles out yet.”Then she hangs him from the branch like he’s laundry, and Scanlan laughs.

 

“Then we’d better get going, huh?” he says, reaching down to the bag of holding.It’s also covered in the tar, and Scanlan silently wishes he knew a cleaning spell, or something akin to one.Grog’ll kill him if he returns it in “less than peppermint condition,” to quote the goliath. 

 

He thinks of thieving and joy, and he feels the broom in his hand, and hauls it out—it’s a messy affair, and he worries he may slip off the branch—but Vex’s eyes grow wide.

 

“It was Percy who noticed that even when your heart was gone, you still loved flying,” he says.“Kept a whole journal full of theories on breaking the deal and things he observed.A little creepy, but sweet, I suppose.”Scanlan holds the broom forward, and Vex steps toward it.

 

“How’d you like to give the old girl a spin?” Scanlan asks, and grins when Vex takes the broom from his hands.His grin grows even bigger when he sees the barest shadow of a smile cross her lips, and he remembers Vex at her best, and he knows how stories work.

 

Step one, done.Step two?Sorry, Vax.

 

—

 

_“Can you fight him?” Scanlan asks, and she can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes, because he looks so serious.It doesn’t fit his face._

 

_He shrugs when she doesn’t talk, and grabs her hand instead.Then he hums a tune, and they’re suddenly somewhere else, away from the cacophony of battle.Before she can take a breath, he’s apologizing and humming and they jump again and again, landing in a murky patch of the swamp, not far from where she had cast her thoughts earlier today.They’re not even a mile away from the tree, and—oh, oh, they’re outside, and there’s a distant dusk that is still brighter than the tree’s ever been._

 

_Vex stands on top of the bog and takes a deep breath—a mistake.She coughs, covers her mouth with an arm, ignores the tar.She has seen this place in her mind, but has never walked it.The trolls’ nest would be a few minutes’ jog towards the tree; their hunting track cuts nearby._

 

_Saundor is still in her mind.She sees an image of the trolls burrowing through the ichor, she sees an image of his hands, covered with rougher bark, encased in vines, as the interior of the tree smolders but refuses to burn.She sees her brother, teeth bared, and Grog, jumping wildly, Keyleth and Pike and Percy, and Percy with the curling arms of Fenthras winding across his coat, and everything seems to focus on him.She feels Saundor’s control shift, feels him bend his mind more fully towards destruction._

 

_Scanlan is saying something.A plan, an escape.He’s stuck in the bog, and she pulls him out with one hand, reaching her mind to a nearby tree and unfurling a branch to them as he squirms._

 

_“I’ve got my heart, but he’s still in my—he can still sense us, even here.He’ll know until we’re gone from the Shademirk.Maybe further, but I can only get a few miles out yet.”She hangs Scanlan from the branch, and he laughs even as his eyes narrow at her words._

 

_“Then we’d better get going, huh?”He sticks a hand into—is that the bag of holding? Gods, it is filthy—and he pulls out a familiar carved handle._

 

_“It was Percy who noticed that even when your heart was gone, you still loved flying,” he says, pulling out her broom bit by bit.“Kept a whole journal full of theories on breaking the deal and things he observed.A little creepy, but sweet, I suppose.”_

 

_He finally fishes it out and holds the broom towards her, grinning even as he bounces haphazardly on the branch.“How’d you like to give the old girl a spin?” he asks, and he grins impossibly wider when she takes the broom._

 

_She—well, her face does something she hasn’t done in months, and she can’t dwell on that—hops on the broom, spits out the word, and feels Saundor’s thoughts leave her friends, leave the tree, cast out to find her as her feet leave the ground._

 

_Even as she feel’s Saundor’s focus hone in on her.Even as his mind presses in._

 

_Even as she pushes back, and sees the interior of the tree on fire in his eyes, and feels his distraction, feels the heat against her own skin._

 

_Even then, Vex breathes, stifles a cough, (and realizes that Saundor’s ignoring what’s happening in the chamber, because he is always, always, always fixated on her.she thinks of deals, and thinks of their shared self-hatred, and (she casts her mind out, past the edge, past saundor’s attention (but it chases her still), and she feels grog’s rage first, and gods, it’s a pure and joyous anger, and pike is praying, her faith bright and clear, and keyleth is bright and burning, and vax and percy are dark and focused, all of their minds singing her name) all of their minds are singing her name) and she hears Scanlan calling her name,_ and her mind comes back to her, all layered thoughts collating and combining in a blink.

 

There is a path that she can see, and it leads back to the tree, and it leads back to her family, and leads back to danger.Saundor is still at the edges of her mind, pressing in, and she’s not certain whose fear courses through her body, and the path still beckons to her.

 

“Scanlan?” she asks, hovering in front of him.He’s holding onto the branch now, kicking a bit, and she feels reckless and wild like she hasn’t felt since before her heart was taken, like the sight of her friends and the promise of flight has kicked her compressed anger straight into fast-breathing, wide-eyed shock.“How important is that plan, anyways?”

 

Scanlan laughs, loud and long.

 

_—_

 

[ _you say everyone you know one day will surely die,_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8hNR4ivZY)

[ _but everything that dies in some way returns._ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8hNR4ivZY)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (after fifth re-write): fuck it just keeps getting longer
> 
> (after seventh re-write): i should just quit and make a scanlan and vex buddy cop AU


	5. wood from a walnut tree (is the hardest to burn)

_ до сега си ми била, _

_ от сегана насетне, първо либе. _

_ to my beautiful friend: _

_ until now you've been mine, but now you are my love.  _

 

—

 

The oozing ground speeds by beneath the broom, and the trees continually bend away from her mind as she bores a path through the dark trees.Vex feels Scanlan wriggling in front of her, trapped between her arm and her belly.He’s rooting around in the bag and his small face is screwed up in concentration.

 

“You’ll mess up my balance,” she says against the wind.“It’s been a bit since I’ve flown.”No, no.She _thinks_ it. 

 

Hmm.Getting used to talking about these incidentals—instead of thinking them, instead of shutting down her discomforts—will take some doing.

 

“Scanlan, what are you doing?”Vex makes an effort to say it this time.“Trying to fly here.”

 

Scanlan _hmm_ s her question away, and pulls an object out of the bag.It’s her hat.That stupid, stupid hat.

 

“I don’t really have any clothes for you,” he says, still smiling.“Not that we’ve got time to change, honestly, but something’s better than nothing.Nice vines, by the way.”

 

Vex shrugs.“They came with the bark, I think.”

 

In all honesty, she’s grateful it’s Scanlan with whom she’s talking first.They’re both liars of a certain stripe, and while he’s far harder to read than she is, she can always count on him knowing when she needs to keep things light.She curls her arm a little tighter around him.

 

“Percy’s got Fenthras.We thought about trying to bargain it back for you, but… well, that was a long shot, to be honest,” he says. “Was that a pun?I think that may have been a pun.What a welcome back for you, huh?”He pats her arm gently (if not a little awkwardly), and the contact—the first in months that hasn’t been Saundor’s, save her brother’s catch in the great tree which looms ever closer—is simple and kind. 

 

“How long has it been?” she asks. 

 

“I was about to ask you the same thing, really,” he replies.The hat is still tightly clutched in his other hand.“For us, it’s been about two days since Thordak fell.Took us a bit of bargaining to get here—we weren’t able to just shift in.How long’s it been for you?Artagan said it’d been…” but his voice is fading to the sound of her heartbeat.

 

Vex can’t quite answer.

 

Two days?

 

Only two days?

 

She hugs Scanlan all the more tightly against her front, as if he can serve as armor between herself and the terror and rage and shame of the greater part of a year in that tree, in Saundor’s mind, in Saundor’s eyes.

 

He stops talking.Instead, with the tree so close now, he sings a song for her instead.It hasn’t got words, but she gets the idea of a dear-friend-regained anyways. 

 

If anything, she’s very good at ideas-without-words by now.Saundor presses at the edges of her mind, and she can make out what he feels by now: elation, love, hatred, despair, bloodlust.She knows the minds of her friends, too, and they’re joyous and enraged.

 

The path that she sees unfolding before her is filling her chest now, her thundering heart in her ears.There’s a large knot that seems to have been pried open at the base of the tree, and she curls herself and Scanlan close to the broomstick.

 

_Hold on tight_ , Vex thinks.Then she remembers herself, and whispers it to him.Scanlan nods, still singing, as he always has during battles.Several months without her brother, several months without light, without music, without air, without love, without honesty—gods, _it is not to be borne._

 

Like an arrow through a practice hoop, they shoot inside the tree.

 

—

 

On the closest banks of the Gilded Run, Artagan bends down to collect stones from the muddy waters.He sees the drooping trees across the way, and tilts his head.

 

The ichor will slow very soon.He cannot cast his mind past these borders—this has never been his territory, and he’d never been the sort for misty forests anyways.Give him a wide plain where mysteries appear to open bare in front of the beholders, give him tall grasses that flow like a sea with great beasts ducking beneath, hidden within the seeming simplicity. 

 

Without Saundor, the Shademirk will be left open to any sort of incursion. 

 

The ichor will slow very soon.His erstwhile kin will not survive Vox Machina.

 

He presses a smooth river stone against his heart, and thinks, and plans.

 

—

 

It’s easy to kill him, thinks Grog.The dude can jump and he can shoot vines and he can hide, but Grog knows that wood burns.Saundor looks like a big ol’ wooden guy.Simple.

 

But Grog also knows he can’t kill Saundor, ‘cause it’s not his kill.He’d seen Vex ( _naked!_ but not in a good way), and he’d seen her face and Grog knows he’s not the smartest, he really does.But he also knows how people work when you take away all the fancy words, when only faces do the talking.And Vex’s face and shoulders and arms had been so tight—granted, it’d been hard to tell what with all the bark and tree shit—that Grog knew she was pissed.Or constipated (as a tree, would she…? Nope, nope, ask later.).

 

With all that in mind, Grog is doing his level best _not_ to lay too much hurt on Saundor.It’s not an easy thing, because Vex and Scanlan have disappeared and Vax seems determined to kill the guy himself.He’s flying around as fast as he can—which, well, Vax is a fast little fucker—and Keyleth’s turned into a fire elemental ( _cool_ , he instinctively thinks) and is set on burning this hole down.Percy’s still shooting but he’s slowed down a bit ‘cause some of his guns broke—shit luck today, hahaha—and Pike’s shining bright at the bottom of the room. 

 

To be honest, Vax and Percy’d talked about a plan to make a deal.Get Garmelie to turn Vex back or something, or at least take her somewhere safe while they beat Saundor up, get ‘im to fix her or give her heart back or something.He hadn’t listened.But he’d seen Vex’s shoulders in the low light, and knew: nope, she gets to kill the baddie.Just like he’d been the one to kill Kevdak in the end, and how Vax’d killed Thordak, and how Cassandra’d killed Lady Briarwood.Each person has their own special killing to do. 

 

(That’d been his original plan, anyways: just _kill_ the fucker.This is why everyone should listen to him.)

 

Grog is climbing the vines on the walls as best as he can, trying to get his way up to Saundor, and a long, low shape bursts through the hole he’d hacked into the tree.There’s music and bright eyes—oh, _yes_.Grog roars in triumph and recognition, and shouts at Percy, who’s still squinting a bit in the darkness:

 

_“Throw the bow!”_ Percy doesn’t jump, but he does grit his teeth and grab Fenthras from where it’s strapped to his back, and lobs it in the air as the shape swoops past, and Scanlan’s singing from the broom about joy and revenge.

 

There’s the shadow of a pointed hat on the larger figure, and the figure catches the bow, and Grog cackles and climbs towards the soon-to-be-corpse in the ceiling of the tree.

 

Now she’s back. _Now_ it’s time to get some hurting done.

 

—

 

Vex catches Fenthras, and its vines curl around her wrist.She holds back a shudder.Now that she’s back in the tree, she feels cruel again, and wills herself not to cough, not to hack—instead, she curls more vines towards her and into the bowstring, twisting them into a dark arrow, and she pulls the life from them, turning them hard and deadly.Scanlan twists off of the broomstick to the floor, still singing but now calling lightning into existence, crackling and bending along the interior of the tree.

 

Saundor is in the topmost part of the tree, hidden by shadows and plants, but she can tell where he is—and he’s in her mind too, and she can hear a death-rattle in her ears and the sound of ichor wetly hitting the floor, and—and—and—

 

And he’s not surprised. 

 

_Had we but a little more time, Vex’ahlia_ , she hears. _I knew I could not keep you forever—but I held your heart in mine, like I never did with her, and I know you, your body, your soul._

 

_Get out_ , she hisses. _My heart is my own.I am my own._

 

Vex coughs, and mud and ichor splatter into her mouth.There is a distant sorrow in her mind, an echo of pity, and a wave of growing satisfaction.The edges of her mind are so muddled by now—she’s lost control over her walls, over that thin line between their consciousnesses—she can’t tell whose thoughts they are.

 

_This is a wretched existence, my love._

 

She spits black tar. She pulls back the bowstring.She looses the arrow.

 

Saundor falls, an arrow of vines in his throat.There is a great pain thrusting through her heart, and Vex’ahlia falls as well.

 

—

 

Pike is the first one to rush over, before Vax even, her gauntlets sparking with their holy warmth.They are bright in the dimness of the three, and Scanlan swoons just a little bit as she heals Vex.She’s breathing again, as faint as the movement is.

 

Then Pike grows even brighter, and there’s a pause, and she’s cursing like the sailor she was.

 

Vex is breathing, yes.But she’s still skinned with bark, she’s still inhuman in that freakishly wooden way.Vax lands, wraps his sister in his arms, and does his own healing.Nothing changes.

 

Vex wakes up, takes a deep breath, and her body is instantly wracked with coughs so severe that Scanlan instinctively takes a step back.Pike doesn’t waver, though, and channels the spell again, and again.Three times Vex is imbued with holy magic, and three times nothing changes.Vax hasn’t let go.

 

“Hello,” Vex says tiredly.“How’s your time been?”She looks at Pike, who’s frustrated, and she looks at the rest of the group.She looks at her brother, and runs a hand over his cheek. 

 

“Hi, Stubby,” he says, his face crumpling.“Missed you.”

 

“It’s only been a couple of days,” she says.“For you, at least.I missed you more, brother.I’m sorry.”

 

Scanlan looks away.He feels like he’s intruding upon something private, and while he normally wouldn’t care about that, these are two family members and he has the feeling that crying’s about to begin.

 

“I don’t care,” he hears Vax say.“Don’t be sorry.We’ve got you back.”Scanlan grimaces.He instead wanders over to Saundor’s body, piled on itself in a mess of wood and black tar.The same black tar she’d spit up during their talk in the bog proper, the same sort of ichor that seemed to flow through the entire Shademirk itself.

 

Paired with the lack of change in her status?An interesting conundrum.

 

There’s a knowledge (Percy and that unhallowed ground of Whitestone), a story (an anchor point for corruption), a fable (don’t make deals with devils _or fae_ ) creeping into the back of Scanlan’s mind. 

 

“Pike,” he says.“Can you—oh, I don’t know—can you figure out if this land is evil somehow?”

 

“Kinda obvious it is, Scanlan,” says Grog, just now clambering down.He suspects Grog took his sweet time making his way through the vines, but this tree would be like a play place for the goliath.“All this tar shit everywhere.”Pike, meanwhile, gives Vex a quick peck on the forehead (Percy’s hanging around the edges by Keyleth, good gods man, just spit it out) and walks to him.

 

“I know, I know—but Pike.Any way you can do a Greater Restoration on the land itself?Is that even possible?”

 

Pike tilts her head.“I know a spell like that, but it’d only be a bit of the land.I wouldn’t be able to get the whole bog.And it’d stop fixing Vex once she left that bit of land.”She squints at Scanlan.“What are you thinking?”

 

“Do you remember Percy in Whitestone?How just being there made him worse?”She nods.“There’s this slop everywhere—even in Vex, I saw her spit it out—and I wonder if it’s just the land itself that’s keeping her all wooden.”

 

Pike opens her mouth to speak, but a voice that Scanlan hadn’t wanted to hear butts in.

 

“And did killing him fix her problem?” Artagan says. 

 

In the shadows of the hollowed-out tree, even as he steps up through the cracked knot, he glows like twilight, and again, he grins.

 

—

 

Vex can feel the archfey in her mind far before he steps into the chamber.Unlike Saundor’s mind, Artagan’s thoughts don’t press uncomfortably against her own.Instead, they’re a solid certainty, another presence, like the heavy air of wall cloud seen over a vast plain, a promise of terrible storms elsewhere.

 

Scanlan and Pike are chatting softly by Saundor’s body.

 

_You’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble here, my dear,_ he whispers in her mind. _But Saundor’s time was bound to end, and I thank you for that._

 

She closes her eyes briefly, and focuses on mending her walls, but before she can do much of anything—

 

“Oh, my dear, don’t bother.I won’t go poking around in there without permission,” Artagan says. _Much,_ he laughs in her mind.Vax’s hold on her is tight.

 

“What do you need?” Percy asks, and her heart (oh! oh, her heart!—gods, it’d hurt, but it seems to be beating fast and true even with Saundor’s death) clenches at his terse voice.“Unless you’re able to help?”Vex opens her eyes, and sees that Keyleth and Percy are side-by-side now, both tense and ready to spring, to cast.

 

She can still feel their minds.They are tired, confused, and upset, and projecting their emotions so, so strongly.

 

“I can help,” Artagan replies smoothly.“I can return Vex’ahlia’s body to its mortal form, provided she makes a deal.”

 

Somewhere in the background, Scanlan groans.She swears she can hear Vax’s scowl take form, and someone’s grip on a weapon creaks dangerously.

 

“No more deals,” Vax says.“We’re fucking done with deals.”

 

“That’s for her to decide, Vax’ildan.”He is still smiling, and within his smile is a threat.“Let your sister do her own speaking, because I’m certain she hasn’t done quite enough of it these past few months.”Then he turns the full force of that gaze—so bright, like Saundor’s—to Vex, and holds out a hand.

 

“I’m just helping you up, Vex’ahlia.May I take a look?”

 

She does not trust him, but there’s a look in his eyes and a feeling she draws from the edge of that storm—of sheer animal curiosity.Not necessarily cruelty, no, but curiosity can be unkind—she’s seen as much before.

 

Vex reaches a hand out—and oh, gods, it’s still bark, she’s still wooden, she’s only had eyes for her family—and nods. 

 

The storm does not grow closer, but she hears a chuckle along the edges.

 

_How terribly interesting,_ he thinks. _There’s a corruption in your mind, my dear.I’m impressed with Saundor, honestly, he’s planted a seed and it’s taken root.Or was the seed there already?  Something watered by not enough love, and then that selfish love of his.  You're a little broken._

 

_Cut the shit_ , Vex thinks.Her eyes are still open, and she sees the entirety of Vox Machina looking on.Vax is nervous and angry, Keyleth and Percy are whispering to each other—planning, no doubt—and Pike and Scanlan are watching her and Artagan with identically narrowed eyes. 

 

Grog just looks bored.Some part of the back of her mind stifles a laugh.

 

_Either way: I can remove this, and you’ll be whole again.And you’ll be in your normal form, too—just come back here at the end of your mortal life, to resume your time as the Warden of the Shademirk._

 

In Artagan’s hand, there is a smooth river stone.It pulses between their palms.She imagines swallowing it, choking it down, drowning the corruption inside but diluting her, some part of her essence, and binding her soul to this place.There is a swift breeze in the plains of Artagan’s mind, and she knows she imagines true.

 

_My kin left you with a modicum of foresight.  It’s up to you, my dear: live your life like this, coughing and bitter and susceptible to the thoughts of others, or live a fairly normal life, and return here before your death._

 

Vex is silent.She closes her eyes.

 

She closes her eyes and thinks of her friends, and goes past the surface emotions within each of them, and feels their love and fear.Thinks of her brother outliving her, of Keyleth watching her friend disappear, of Grog and Pike and Scanlan moving on without her, of Percy, of Percy, of something never spoken.  Thinks of a muted life, and thinks of dealing with decisions.

 

_Oh, my loves,_ she thinks. 

 

(her heart is her own.but now, with greater perspective, she realizes: it’s not. she has given it away—not physically, not held-in-whole like it’d been with Saundor—but to this family, this ragtag group of people.they held her heart and she was stupid (no, not quite, not stupid, but instead too focused on her rage and her desires) to give something away that _already belonged to so many others._ )

 

( _This is a wretched existence, my love_.)

 

Damn him.

 

Vex smiles and removes her hand from Artagan’s cool palm, and curls his fingers around the proffered stone.  

 

“Thank you for your kind offer,” she says softly.“ But I’ll take my chances.”

 

Vex’ahlia turns to her family.Keyleth spins her staff experimentally, and Vox Machina quickly joins hands with each other, and Vex can feel the joy radiating from the group even as there’s a taste of tar in the back of her throat.Scanlan winks at her, but there’s something serious in his gaze that says he’s planning, he’s thinking.  Pike also looks at her, and there's a considering, hopeful glint in her eyes that almost seems reflected by her holy symbol.

 

Vax grabs her right hand while Percy gently takes her left, and oh, there’s a promise in those fingers softly twining around hers.

 

“Let’s go home.”

 

—

 

[ _ Изгори ме, попари ме, _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGaRGjksa7g)

[ _ та ме стори, сухо дърво. _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGaRGjksa7g)

[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGaRGjksa7g)

[ _ burn me. set me on fire and turn me into dry wood.  _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGaRGjksa7g)

[ _ dry wood, all from a walnut tree. _ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGaRGjksa7g)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the end (finally).)
> 
> thank you for reading and commenting. it's very, very appreciated.
> 
> edit 3.21: added music links throughout chapters @ end text. they are as follows:  
> ch.1: pale sun rose - matthew and the atlas  
> ch.2: golden arrow - darkside  
> ch.3: nowhere now - matthew and the atlas  
> ch.4: everything that dies - matthew and the atlas  
> ch.5: schopska pesen - traditional bulgarian folk song; arranged and performed by the bulgarian state radio and television choir.


End file.
